Cable Preempts Osborne Loan Cap in U.K. Party Jostling

June 13 (Bloomberg) -- With less than a year to go to the
general election, the two parties in the U.K. coalition
government have begun jostling each other for credit on big
policy announcements.

Yesterday morning, Liberal Democrat Business Secretary
Vince Cable appeared at short notice on the BBC’s flagship radio
news show to say the Bank of England should restrain the size of
mortgages as a proportion of income. Just over eight hours
later, Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne
pledged to give the central bank that power.

In March, Cable was on the receiving end of such a
maneuver, when Prime Minister David Cameron made an announcement
on increasing the minimum wage that the business secretary had
been due to give a few days later.

“Up to now the parties have differentiated themselves from
each other by talking about how the others are preventing them
doing what they want to do,” Andrew Russell, professor of
politics at Manchester University, said in an interview. “Now
it’s a bit more aggressive and they’re trying to encroach on
each other’s territory. For the Lib Dems, it’s important to get
some credit on the economy.”

Cable’s intervention focused on housing, the area where he
made his name as his party’s economics spokesman over the past
decade. He has warned of a danger of another housing bubble for
the past year, expressing skepticism about Osborne’s Help-to-Buy
program, aimed at helping homebuyers.

Slumping Support

The Liberal Democrats saw their popularity slump after they
entered the coalition in 2010. They are currently polling fourth
nationally, behind the opposition Labour Party, the Tories and
the U.K. Independence Party. In last month’s European elections,
the party finished fifth, behind the Greens.

Since those elections, the splits within the coalition have
largely been within parties, with Cable forced to disown a
friend who was plotting to remove Liberal Democrat leader Nick
Clegg, and Cameron intervening to settle a public dispute
between fellow Tories Theresa May, the home secretary, and
Michael Gove, the education secretary.

Cable said in an interview published last night in The
House magazine, which is distributed to lawmakers, that he
worked well with Tory colleagues and that Cameron had been
“supportive” of his industrial policy.

Next week, the Tories will seek to emphasize differences
with the Liberal Democrats in another area. Conservative
ministers, who back a plan to introduce mandatory jail sentences
for anyone caught carrying a knife for a second time, will
abstain in a vote in Parliament on the issue because it’s not an
agreed government policy. Backbench Tory lawmakers will be
allowed to vote for the proposal, while Liberal Democrat
ministers and lawmakers will oppose it.